A former Chicago mobster who claims to have killed President John F Kennedy says that President Donald Trump‘s plan to release the files tied to the assassination will only yield more ‘lies’.
James Files, 83, claims he fired the bullet that killed Kennedy on November 22, 1963 from behind a fence on the grassy knoll overlooking Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
He says the other shot that struck Kennedy was fired by his boss, Charles ‘Chuckie’ Nicoletti, who was hiding out in the book depository – the same place Lee Harvey Oswald is believed to have been at the time of the shooting.
Files and his team of mafia hitmen, who he claims were recruited and trained by the CIA, packed up their weapons and fled the scene just seconds after the fatal shot was fired, he alleges.
The mobster first claimed to have killed JFK in the 1190s, while he was jailed for the attempted murder of two police officers. His account of Kennedy’s assassination has been widely dismissed over the years.
Now, after Trump signed an executive order authorizing the release of remaining classified JFK records, Files has once again doubled down on his claim that he ‘took the fatal shot’ that killed Kennedy.
He has also warned that despite Trump’s order, intelligence officials are unlikely to change their stance on the case and claims that ‘a hundred years from now they will still say that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and there was no conspiracy’.
‘The government tells a lie, they have to live the lie. I don’t think Trump will get any further than what’s already been disclosed,’ Files told The Times, alleging the ‘CIA has lied to the American public for 61 years’ and is not suddenly going to say ‘we’re sorry, we lied to you’.
James Files, 83, claims he fired the bullet that killed Kennedy on November 22, 1963 from behind a fence on the grassy knoll overlooking Dealey Plaza in Dallas
Kennedy was assassinated in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963, as his motorcade passed in front of the Texas School Book Depository building
The Dallas Police Department mug shot of Lee Harvey Oswald following his arrest over the JFK assassination. Oswald always denied killing Kennedy, but was shot dead by nightclub boss Jack Ruby before he could go on trial for murder
Files was a Vietnam war veteran who was also part of a team that trained a militia for the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
After he was kicked out of the military, Files became the right hand man to Chicago mafia chief Nicoletti, who was a hitman for mob boss Sam Giancana.
Files says the other shot that struck Kennedy was fired by his boss, Charles ‘Chuckie’ Nicoletti, (pictured) who was hiding out in the book depository – the same place Lee Harvey Oswald is believed to have been at the time of the shooting
Files has previously alleged there was a conspiracy between the mafia and the CIA to kill Kennedy.
He claimed the CIA turned against JFK after called for a stop of the secret Bay of Pigs operation and that the agency then called in mobsters to assassinate him in Dallas.
Files detailing his account of the fatal shooting, says he was stationed on the grassy knoll as Kennedy’s motorcade approached.
He ‘followed’ Kennedy through the ‘crosshairs’ of his gun and shot the president as his open-topped limousine turned onto Elm Street.
‘Before I lost my line of sight, I took the fatal shot. I hit Kennedy in the right temple, and blew the back side of his head out,’ he told the newspaper.
He and his team then cleared the area within seconds without anyone noticing, Files has claimed.
Files has also alleged that Oswald, who was charged, but then shot dead before he could be tried or convicted in the killing, never fired a single shot.
Oswald always denied killing Kennedy, but was shot dead by nightclub boss Jack Ruby before he could go on trial for murder.
The Warren Commission concluded Oswald acted alone, but conspiracy theories have run riot ever since.
Home film footage of President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade speeding down a Dallas freeway to the hospital after he was fatally wounded on Nov. 22, 1963
President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy arrive at Love Field in Dallas, Texas less than an hour before his assassination in this November 22, 1963 photo by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton obtained from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston
A collection of over 5 million government records at the National Archives was required to be opened by 2017, unless there were any exemptions designated by the president.
But about 3,600 of those records still have redactions and haven’t yet been fully released.
Surveillance of Oswald, a file on a Cuban hitman, and the president’s plan to obliterate the CIA are among bombshell revelations that could be contained within secret JFK assassination files.
In late January, Trump ordered the declassification of the remaining files, saying: ‘All will be revealed.’
No date has yet been set for the release, but the White House was alerted on February 7 that the FBI discovered about 14,000 pages of documents as the agency set about reviewing the secret files in response to the order.
‘This is huge. It shows the FBI is taking this seriously,’ Jefferson Morley, an expert on the Kennedy murder told Axios.
‘The FBI is finally saying, ‘Let’s respond to the president’s order,’ instead of keeping the secrecy going.’
While experts claimed the discovery could let to a new era of transparency regarding the shooting – Trump insiders worried the development was a stall tactic.
One anonymous Trump aide was furious, calling the development ‘total Deep State bulls**t.’
Another said: ‘When POTUS hears about this stonewalling, he’s gonna hit the roof.’
The document bombshell was revealed to the Trump administration after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had filed its plan to disclose the records.
Conspiracies have swirled for decades claiming JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was not a lone actor and was working with Soviets or Cubans – or even the CIA
Lee Harvey Oswald is shown after his arrest. He was later shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in a moment captured live on television
Millions of pages of JFK documents have already been released leaving only a few thousand kept in the archives.
The most recent releases included CIA cables and memos recording visits by Oswald to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City weeks before the assassination.
Experts doubt there are any major revelations lurking in the archives that would change the accepted version of events.
Trump promised during his reelection campaign that he would declassify remaining government records surrounding the assassination.
He made a similar promise in his first term but gave way to the CIA and FBI who argued that some documents should be kept from the public for fear they would reveal national security secrets.
Trump said he was persuaded by Mike Pompeo, his former CIA director, not to release them during his first term.
‘I was actually asked by Mike Pompeo, secretary of State, not to, and I felt he knew something that maybe, you know , when he asked you not to, you sort of say ‘why?’ and he felt that it was not a good time to release them,’ Trump said.
The Kennedy family has been wrought with division over trump’s order to release the final classified files.
Trump’s health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr said he approves of the decision to declassify the files relating to the infamous 1963 murder of his uncle.
President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, DC on January 23, 2025.
Robert Kennedy Jr said he approves of the decision to declassify the files relating to the infamous 1963 murder of his uncle. RFK Jr is pictured with Donald Trump after he was sworn in as Secretary of Health and Human Services on February 13, 2025
RFK Jr has previously repeated conspiracy theories that the CIA was involved in his uncle’s assassination
‘I think it’s a great move because they need to have more transparency in our government and he’s keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything,’ RFK Jr said after Trump signed the order.
His approval of the files’ release is starkly in contrast with comments made by JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg, who issued a harsh rebuke to the order.
‘The truth is a lot sadder than the myth – a tragedy that didn’t need to happen,’ Schlossberg previously said. ‘Not part of an inevitable grand scheme. Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back. There’s nothing heroic about it.’
In the past, other members of the Kennedy family have supported the release of the files, including former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy.
‘I think for the good of the country, everything has to be put out there so there’s greater understanding of our history,’ Patrick Kennedy said in 2021, as reported by Politico.
